“Core consumer prices” fell by a monthly 0.1 percent in January, reported the Wall Street Journal on February 19, noting that the last time core consumer prices fell was in December 1982. However, noted the Journal, citing the U.S. Department of Labor’s statement, the seasonally adjusted consumer price index rose 0.2 percent during the same month, the increase caused mainly by higher energy prices.

"The art of economics," economist Henry Hazlitt wrote nearly seven decades ago, "consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

More than a year has elapsed since the U.S. economy went into a tailspin with the panic that shook the world’s financial markets in the fall of 2008. Two presidential administrations have attempted to solve the crisis by political means, using taxpayer dollars to bail out certain corporations deemed too large or too critical to be allowed to fail.

When he appeared on ABC News's This Week on February 7, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was quizzed about the risk of the United States losing its triple-A credit rating, the chances that foreign investors might start shunning US debt, and whether the economy would suffer a double dip recession.